


Up to Snuff

by youcouldmakealife



Series: Impaired Judgment (and other excuses) [29]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-05-13 03:12:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14740947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youcouldmakealife/pseuds/youcouldmakealife
Summary: wud u b cool meeting my mom?Bryce texts right before Jared has to head on the ice for warm ups.Sure. When?Jared texts back.shes gunna b at ur game, Bryce says.





	Up to Snuff

Jared and Bryce manage to get another on ice session in — one where Jared doesn’t tackle Bryce even _once_ — before they’re both heading out of town. At the same time, which is nice, though the fact that Bryce is off on a long ass roadie in the east is less great. Like, Jared’s back in five days. Bryce? Ten days. Six freaking games. And of course he hits the east coast the second the Hitmen mosey into Pacific time.

It starts well for both of them — the Hitmen absolutely destroy Kelowna, and the Flames don’t _destroy_ the Leafs, exactly, win in the shootout, but it’s two more points in the Flames’ pocket, a point allowed for a team they’re not competing against. It also continues the best start of a season they’ve had in a long fucking time, and Bryce’s three game point streak is now a four game point streak. 

The Hitmen move to face the Giants as the Flames go to play the Sens, and it’s weird, because even though Jared’s been to Vancouver more than a few times for hockey, when they pull in this time he finds himself looking out the window, all ‘this is where Bryce is from’. And like, it isn’t — they’re not even in Vancouver, they’re in Langley, and that’s the other side of Vancouver from Richmond — Jared looked it up, whatever. And it’s not like he’s in freaking, like, Europe or something, the differences aren’t exactly staggering, but still, once they pull off the highway he’s embarrassingly alert. He really wants to win this one. He wants to win all of them, obviously, but he wants this one especially. 

_wud u b cool meeting my mom?_ Bryce texts right before Jared has to head on the ice for warm ups. He must’ve just gotten off the ice himself, and Jared’s tempted to go check the final score, but he knows that’ll lead to reading the entire play-by-play, and he doesn’t have the time. 

_Sure. When?_ Jared texts back. He’s not like — he can’t say no, after Bryce actually did dinner with his parents, but it’s kind of nerve-wracking just thinking about it. He doesn’t know if a ton of notice would help or hurt in this situation. Like, on the one hand he can steel himself, but on the other hand, he might just work himself up.

 _shes gunna b at ur game_ , Bryce says.

Never mind, a ton of notice would have been _great_.

 _no pressure if u cant_ , Bryce says, but like — _obviously_ pressure if Jared can’t.

The team’s going straight back to the hotel after the game, plus it’s an evening one. If he does meet with her after the game he’ll miss curfew, so Jared has to go ask Coach for permission, which is — awkward. Like, what’s he going to say, ‘yeah I have to meet my boyfriend’s mom, be back just a bit past curfew if I don’t die of nerves’. 

“My aunt just let me know she’s going to be at the game,” he goes with, which isn’t true, maybe, but is more likely to get a yes than a non-familial connection, and also implies he’ll be with a responsible adult, which is also more likely to get him a yes. The adult part’s true anyway, so he considers it a white lie. “Is it okay if I stick around after to say hi? I’ll get a ride back to the hotel.”

Again, he doesn’t know if he wants Coach to say no — he’d feel shitty saying no himself, but if Coach says no, Coach says no, and Bryce would probably understand that. If anyone would get that Coach’s word is law, it’d be another hockey player.

Coach gives him a look. “I’m going to check on your room an hour after we get back,” he says. “And if you’re not there, I’m scratching you against the Royals.”

Jared winces, even though he plans to be back by then. Well, now he _really_ plans to be back by then. Like, is going to google map how long it takes to get back to the hotel by car and basing how much time he has on that plus how long he’d wait for a cab plus what the traffic might look like planning on being back by then.

Jared tries not to look into the crowd during warm ups. For one, he needs the time to get into his headspace for the game, and he doesn’t know what Bryce’s mom even looks like, so he’d just, like, what, stare at every woman that looks like they might be forty or over? She might not even be at warm ups. Fuck, he needed more notice than this. Goddamnit, Bryce.

Jared feels vaguely queasy during the pregame speech. The Giants started slow this season, but they’ve won their last three straight. Which doesn’t say much, really, except all three of them were complete routs, so when Coach says to take them seriously, Jared’s not disagreeing at all. 

It’s ridiculous, because every single game Jared plays is in front of at least a thousand people — home games it can tick up to ten thousand — and any given game, a scout could be watching, gauging to see if he’d make a good fit for their team. He has to be on every single game. Hell, now he knows Calgary’s star forward — incidentally his boyfriend — has a WHL Live subscription, so he could be watching at any time as well. This game is fundamentally pretty small in the scheme of things.

And yet knowing Bryce’s mom is going to be somewhere in the crowd, watching him play — he’s weirdly way more nervous than he usually is when he takes the ice.

Thankfully it doesn’t show, at least he doesn’t think it does. He plays well, notches a primary assist on a power play goal in the first, a secondary one during the third. They lose in OT, but that’s a point, and at least it wasn’t a rout. It leaves a sour taste in Jared’s mouth, but he doesn’t have time to focus on it, not with Bryce’s texts, first a _sorry_ and a sad face, and then _shell meet u outside if thats ok_.

“I’m going to come by your room around eleven,” Coach says when Jared double checks he’s good to go, threat wrapped in statement of fact, and Jared nods and hurries out the door.

Jared was kind of worried he wouldn’t recognise Bryce’s mom among the scattered remaining crowd, would end up standing around awkwardly, texting Bryce for a description or something, but he guesses she recognises him, because she comes straight up to him when he gets outside. Well, at least he assumes it’s her.

She’s really pretty, which Jared guesses isn’t surprising considering Bryce is her kid. Tiny, which is. Bryce’s dad must’ve been where Bryce got his height, because she’s probably an entire foot shorter than Bryce is.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you,” she says, and then, before he can reach his hand out to shake, she hugs him. Her head makes it up to like, halfway up his chest.

“You too,” Jared says, flustered, and hugs her back because he’s pretty sure it would be rude not to. 

“Look at you,” she says when she pulls back, and then, as Jared can feel himself going red, because like, what does that _mean_ , “You’re _adorable_.”

Jared is probably now, like. Purple.

“Um,” Jared says. What do you say to that? Not ‘you too’, obviously. “Thank you?”

“I’m Elaine,” she says, thank fuck, because Bryce didn’t mention her name, and Jared was too dumb to ask, and Jared doesn’t know if she’s Mrs. Marcus or she kept her maiden name or if she like, reverted to it when Bryce’s dad died, he doesn’t know how that works, and oh god, Jared, this is emphatically not the time to panic, stop it.

“It’s nice to meet you, Elaine,” Jared says, but shit, he already said that, didn’t he, he’s completely messing this up. Think of something else to say.

“Traffic here was okay?” Jared asks, because apparently if you’re desperately grasping for something to say, you channel your grandma. 

“Great,” she says, unfazed, then, “I’m sure you have curfew, I hope I’m not going to get you in trouble.”

“No, I—” Jared says. “I asked my coach if I could stick around a bit. I’ve got to be back at the hotel around eleven, though, if that’s okay, or?”

“I’ll drive you!” she says, so cheerfully it feels rude to say anything but yes. “Let’s get a drink first. It’s a little late for coffee, but maybe some tea? Or a smoothie, some juice? I don’t know if you—”

Jared thinks he knows where Bryce got his nervous rambling from? He has no idea why Elaine would be nervous, though, so maybe that’s just the way she is naturally.

“It’ll be busy everywhere around here, I’m sure,” she says. “Give me the address of your hotel, and we’ll stop somewhere on the way?”

Jared follows her out to the parking lot, grateful that she steers him away from the Hitmen bus still in the lot. It’s not like anyone would know from looking that she isn’t actually his aunt, but if someone came up, she’d probably take offence to him calling him her aunt or something, and he’s definitely not introducing her as his boyfriend’s mom, on the off chance someone could like, recognise her from a mom’s trip in the previous seasons or something. Paranoid, probably, but he doesn’t want to out Bryce.

Jared’s pretty sure the car she gets into is stupid expensive, even knowing as little as he does about cars — he knows enough to recognise a BMW logo — but it’s not like, flashy like Bryce’s convertible or anything. Not that anyone in their right mind would have a convertible in Vancouver, considering it rains like, every day, but honestly, as far as ‘places where a convertible makes sense’, Calgary doesn’t rank all that much higher.

He thought the ride would be awkward — there’s something about getting into a car with someone you don’t know very well that’s ten times more awkward than talking to them anywhere else, maybe because you can’t excuse yourself without, like, opening the door and jumping out of a moving vehicle. It’s weirdly not, though, not really.

She’s kind of peppering him with questions, but it doesn’t feel like the interrogation Bryce got? More like she’s just really interested in like, whether he has siblings (unfortunately) and how school’s going (he’s keeping up pretty well considering how much of it he misses during roadies) and how he’s feeling about the season so far.

Elaine pulls into a Starbucks, orders herbal tea for herself, then Jared when he takes her cue, then refusing to let him pay for it. She’s got a Starbucks loyalty card she pulls out, so Jared comforts himself that he’s like, helping her get free drinks or whatever.

“Bryce says your parents don’t really approve of your relationship?” Elaine asks, when they sit down.

“I mean,” Jared says, blows on his tea while he tries to think of a diplomatic way to put things, since it’s Bryce’s mom. “They’re a little nervous about the age difference. And, like, they live in Calgary — I’m still living with them, not billeting or anything, and they’re Flames fans, so they know—” he cuts himself off, not sure he can say anything about the arrests. Like, he’s sure she _knows_ about them, but it’s awkward to mention them to Bryce’s mom.

“So they know about what happened this spring,” she fills in when he doesn’t say anything.

“I—” Jared says, then, “Yeah.”

She blows out a breath. “He’s a good boy,” she says. “I know he — he’s made some mistakes, and he needs to take responsibility for them, but.”

“I know,” Jared says. 

“And I told him if he ever drove drunk again I’d kill him myself,” she says, her voice like steel, and then, back to completely sweet, like nothing happened, “So, what do your parents do, Jared? I asked Bryce, but he ‘ummed’ for about two minutes, and I don’t know if that means he doesn’t know, or he did and he forgot. That tends to happen with everything that isn’t hockey, just in one ear and out the other.”

Jared decides, right then, that he really likes Bryce’s mom. Like, he already did, but. He really likes Bryce’s mom.

*

Bryce’s mom drops him off at the hotel with five minutes to spare, insists on getting out of the car and giving him another hug before she drives off. Jared’s out of his game day suit and into PJs, texting Bryce to tell him things went good and he liked his mom — he’s probably sleeping right now, but Jared would be freaking out if he woke up with no word if Bryce met _his_ parents unsupervised — when there’s a knock on the door. Coach gives Jared an approving nod when Jared answers it, and then walks away without a word. Efficient man, Coach.

His phone buzzes with a call, and when Jared pulls it out it’s Bryce, which isn’t like, the normal thing at all — they’re text or Skype people, and Skype’s reserved for, well. Jerking off, pretty much.

“My, uh,” Jared says. “Parents,” he goes with, even though it’s past midnight back home, and heads into the bathroom, because no way he’s comfortable with Tristyn hearing even one side of his conversation.

“What’s up?” Jared asks, after he’s locked the door behind him. Not that Tristyn’s going to barge in, probably, but. Better safe than sorry. “Isn’t it like two in the morning there?”

“Yeah,” Bryce says. “But like. I just talked to my mom? She really liked you.”

Jared sits down on the edge of the bath. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Bryce says.

“I really liked her,” Jared says, even though he already texted Bryce that.

“Yeah?” Bryce asks, and Jared can practically see the smile in his voice, so he’s glad he said it.

“Yeah,” Jared says, then, “Wow, this is a riveting conversation we’re having, yeah?”

Bryce laughs, then yawns.

“Go to bed,” Jared says.

“Yeah,” Bryce mumbles. “Just wanted to, you know—”

See how it went, Jared guesses. He probably wouldn’t be sleeping either, to be fair. 

“It went well,” Jared says. “Go to bed, Marcus.”

“Kay,” Bryce says. “Love you.”

“You too,” Jared says, and Tristyn gives him a weird look when he comes out of the bathroom, probably because talking to your parents doesn’t generally leave you beaming. Apparently talking to your boyfriend’s mom does, though, or like, passing the test of parental approval.

He wants to share it with someone, but he doesn’t really know — he can’t, he guesses. Wouldn’t want to tell Tristyn anyway, but thinks it’d be cool if he could say he met his boyfriend’s mom to Chaz or something without worrying he’d somehow put things together. But like, it’s fine. Bryce told his mom about him, and she apparently likes him, and Bryce knows she likes him, and that’s — he's not complaining. He can’t complain.


End file.
